The feminist disability approach attempts to reshape the thinking of society concerning physical impairment and variations. Garland Thompson likens a disabled or gendered body to an irreducible physical challenge or biological sex. The feminist studies now look at the relationship between gender and disability as well as class and race. Physical impairment just like gender is associated with a pervasive cultural outlook that stigmatizes particular types of body movements and variations (Garland-Thomson, 5). Disability is attributed to inferiority, misfortune, or inadequacy because of the social and cultural perceptions in the community. This article conceptualizes on the ability and disability system instituted by Garland Thompson to develop an understanding of the excerpt Circus Africanus by Harriet Washington.
For many decades, discrimination has shunned certain groups of people due to their differences. An examination of the lives of the minorities portrays how society idealizes the Black race to monkeys or the way that individuals with disabilities act or walk like monkeys. The feminist disability system creates an interpretation of the perceptions of human beings regarding differences as some form of impairment. The article titled Circus Africanus is a reflection of the ethical blindness of historical researchers such as Dr. Livingstone and Samuel Verner towards the Africans (Washington, 1).
According to the feminist disability theories, the physical or material comparisons made by people are ideological and not biological. The attitudes penetrate the architectural and social environment as well as cultural formation and distribution of power, resources, and status (Garland-Thomson, 5). Based on the theory, the Africans were categorized as impaired persons because they were deemed less superior that the Whites with minimal sensitivity and intelligence. The color of their skins appeared to the explorers as a physical anomaly that they probably related to illness or the concept of monkeys (Washington, 2). Circus Africanus is a revelation of how the Blacks were kept in zoos just like mere animals acting as a vivid depiction of a pervasive cultural system that stigmatizes physical variations.
Works Cited
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory. NWSA Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, Feminist Disability Studies (Autumn, 2002), pp. 1-32.
Washington, Harriet. Circus Africanus. New York: Anchor Books, 2006.
